In terms of sheer numbers of soldiers, armored vehicles, guns, and the scale of destruction and casualties, the Eastern Front was the most active and decisive theater of war during the 20th century. For four years, the armies and air forces of the world's two most powerful and brutal dictators savaged each other over terrain that stretched from the Arctic to the Middle East. The map of Europe was changed forever by the fighting on this front, and even today, the world reverberates with the echoes of that fighting, in places like Chechenya and the Balkans.

Despite the enormous importance of the fighting that occurred between Nazi Germany and her allies and the Soviet Empire, we are still uncovering vastly important and long concealed facts about the war. For almost 50 years, the world had to depend largely on captured German records for its understanding of the Eastern Front, since almost all information made available by the Soviets was propaganda or even disinformation. Over the last decade, following the fall of the Communism in Europe in general, and Russia in particular, long-sealed archives have begun to open, and the truth about the Soviet side of the war is finally being discovered.

Slaughterhouse includes the following features:

— Two chapters by famed Sovietologist David Glantz: "Chronology of the War on the Eastern Front" (with nine detailed maps) and "Forgotten Battles" of the Eastern Front.

— The German armed forces and their allies: Thumbnail histories of 487 army groups, armies, corps, and divisions that saw combat on the Eastern Front.